Review: Opus




by Bradley Troll, TheatreBelowSeaLevel.com

 "At it's best, it's like making love... at it's worst, it's like swallowing Drano."  This analogy is used to describe a quartet making music.  However, Southern Rep's performance of Opus by Michael Hollinger takes this sentiment beyond the lines of a staff and onto the boards of a stage.  A true act of creation, Opus is love, music, and theatre in harrowing harmony.

The Lazzara String Quartet is in trouble.  An established presence in both the music world and each others' lives, the men of the foursome have lost a member to initially mysterious circumstances.  With a command performance on the horizon for an unnamed President (though the target of the sarcastic comments paints an easily identifiable "W"), the aging artists must scramble to pass the bow and viola to someone worthy.

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Enter Grace, a young prodigy with surprising skills and a nervous demeanor.  With the new member in place, they decide to attempt the Everest of musical selection:  Beethoven's Opus 131.  As the group struggles to once again come together, the mens' sordid history builds to world-shattering crescendos.  Jealousy, love, bitterness, triumph, and madness create beautiful chords and terrifying dissonance as each character faces the future of the Lazzara and of their own lives.

Playwright Michael Hollinger's experience in music is immediately obvious in his script.  However, his mastery of character and storytelling creates an dizzying world that drives through breathlessly for the entirety on the 90-minute play.  Hollinger takes the plot in and out of flashbacks seamlessly and smoothly like a bow crossing back and forth across delicate strings.  For these characters, there is much more at stake than music, and at the same time, the loss of music means the loss of everything.

The four actors playing the members of the original quartet, simply stated, make music.  At times their music is soothing and transcendent; at times it is furious and disorienting--an elegant tempest.  As Elliot, the controlling leader of the quartet, Bob Edes, Jr. is alternately heartbreaking and horrifying.  Edes' skillful portrayal of the manipulating first-chair is an intricate examination of a sympathetic character ruled by jealousy as he drives his lover to the edge of sanity.  As the brilliant though troubled lover Dorian, Vatican Lokey creates a character as rich as the tones of his Lazzara viola.  Lokey conducts his character through a symphony of love, loss, and perseverance with understated though vivid virtuosity.

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Portraying Alan, the divorced bachelor with a libido, Drew Battles grounds the cast with his tender confidence and smooth humor.  John Neisler's performance as Carl is very nearly written off as ambient music early on, but he builds his character to an incendiary cymbal crash of frenzied fortissimo by the play's end--a joy to watch.  As the newcomer, Grace, Shauna Rappold plays the nervous-newcomer with a little too much anxious staccato in the beginning, but like her character, she soon settles into the rest of the cast's rhythm.

Mark Routheir makes some very wise choices in direction.  While the actors did receive training in handling their instruments, none of them make an attempt to vary finger placement on their strings.  However, they move their bows with such exquisite devotion and move their bodies with the flow of the music so lovingly, that one begins to accept the conventions presented.  While I know those actors were not playing those instruments, I left believing that no five people ever played as beautifully.

 

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James K. Faerron's set and Kiane Baas's lighting blend together in true harmony.  The wood-paneled walls seem little more in the beginning than reminiscent of a recording studio and versatile backdrop for various locales, but later the scrim of the upstage wall reveals rich lighting as the music plays--a visual illustration of the quartet's bowed beauty.  By the end, the actors stand in silhouette against the scrim walls like strings over the hollow of a violin.  The set and lights become the instrument, a beautiful representation of the characters' Lizzaros.

Opus does not leave us with any clear ending for these characters.  Like any good piece of music, we're simply left humming the tunes of their stories and wanting even more.  The characters do not achieve perfection.  As Dorian says, "Never perfect, just closer.  That's all we can hope for."  In terms of theatre-going, this production pushes toward perfection with an evening of rich, tight storytelling.  Humorous and tragic, Opus is music to an audience's ears.

Opus runs through October 11th at Southern Rep.  Tickets can be purchased online or by calling (504) 522-6545.